


Bait and Switch

by apollojusticeforall



Category: MASH (TV)
Genre: BJ Goes To Maine, Discussions of PTSD Symptoms, Drinking Games, M/M, an exploration of storytelling as a love language
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-03-05
Updated: 2021-03-05
Packaged: 2021-03-19 03:20:27
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 13,978
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/29868354
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/apollojusticeforall/pseuds/apollojusticeforall
Summary: “We can make it a game, for old time’s sake. Tell me three things about yourself, but make one of them a lie.”AKA a story told through storytelling, and how the truth is usually (but not always) easier to swallow if it tastes like a lie. Featuring M*A*S*H unit sleepover shenanigans, BJ goes to Maine, and BJ’s Complete Lies.
Relationships: B. J. Hunnicutt/Benjamin Franklin "Hawkeye" Pierce
Comments: 22
Kudos: 63





	Bait and Switch

**Author's Note:**

> The WIP title for this was simply "Zing!"

“Liar!”

Father Mulcahy’s smile was sweet, but pinched with mischief. “I confess, I am disobeying the Lord’s ninth commandment, but the game is you have to guess which one is the lie.”

“I think it’s the third one, the one with the orangutan!” Klinger blurted from his spot on the floor of the Swamp. He flexed his bare feet, the nude-colored pumps he wore earlier that day discarded in a pile next to him. “No way you guys really had an ape at seminary!” 

“No no, I say it’s the first one. I cannot imagine you ever having the first book of the _Well-Tempered Clavier_ memorized given your petulant preferences towards _popular_ genres.” Charles stretched his legs out in front of his chair, his words slightly slurred thanks to the few glasses of Cognac he’d consumed.

Father Mulcahy’s face twisted at Charles’s remark, but he remained sitting on his hands atop Charles’s footlocker.

Margaret, perched next to Father Mulcahy and holding a beer bottle between her knees, shook her head. “I’m with Klinger, for once.” She hiccupped. “It’s gotta be that story about that ridiculous monkey business.”

Across the room, Hawkeye started cackling so hard he nearly spilled his martini (a generous word for the lighter fluid they brewed in the still, which was anywhere from ninety to ninety-eight percent moonshine). “Monkey business! Oh Margaret, I knew you always had a wild side.”

Margaret had apparently had just enough to drink where she smiled at him instead of rolling her eyes.

“I’m with th-th-the youngsters,” Colonel Potter said, slumped in B.J.’s chair and drunk enough to be stuttering. “Yer aiming a little farther than you can spit there, Padre.”

“Yeah, I think so, too.” Radar sat cross-legged on the foot of Hawkeye’s cot with his chin in his hands and a Grape Nehi in his lap. The kid kept shaking his head to stay awake. “Not about the spitting I mean, Father, just that I think you’re lying about that furry ol’ orangutan.”

Mulcahy only pressed his lips together. “What do you think, B.J.?”

B.J. studied him from where he was sprawled across his own cot, feet up on his pillow. Earlier, Hawkeye had dragged his chair over to his side and was sitting crooked with one leg thrown over the arm and the other tucked between B.J.’s armpit and the mattress. B.J. had complained about the stench from his socks setting his martini on fire, but hadn’t moved to push him away.

“I think,” B.J. said slowly, holding the tent’s attention captive for a pregnant moment, “it’s the second one. Your sister really doesn’t play the saxophone. How do we know you even have a sister?”

An overlapping chorus of voices responded.

“Oh, come on!”

“Hunnicutt, you complete dolt!”

“Because he talks about her all the time!”

B.J. batted their protests away with a hand. “That’s what I’m sticking with! Tell us, Father, which one is it?”

Mulcahy wiggled in his seat. “It was the third one.”

Cheers broke out across the Swamp.

Mulcahy’s smile turned sheepish. “You can’t blame me! I understandably don’t have much practice bearing false witness.”

“I’ve found the subtler fibs work better in a game like this, Padre,” Potter told him. “Easier to fool folks when most of what you’re saying is true.”

“B.J.! Charles!” Margaret pointed aggressively at them both. “You two got it wrong. Drink up!”

Charles’s lip curled, but he dutifully took a sip of cognac.

Hawkeye leaned over and smacked B.J. on the shoulder. “That one was so obvious! How could you get it wrong?”

B.J. shrugged, smiled good-naturedly, and tipped his glass back before balancing it on his knee. “What can I say? You never really know a man until you’ve looked him in the lies.”

Hawkeye snorted and shook his head, letting B.J. know he thought that pun was particularly bad but he enjoyed it anyway.

Some high-snot general had passed word that the offensives were supposed to ease up for the weekend, and it was Colonel Potter who had suggested they all take a load off after a particularly grueling day in O.R. Most of the camp was living large over at the O-Club, but Hawkeye and B.J. had retreated to the Swamp to make use of the still. They’d somehow attracted a larger congregation for their Bring Your Own Booze affair, leading to the group arranging their chairs and footlockers in a loose circle and playing drinking games like kids at a sleepover. 

B.J. had originally been hoping for a quieter night in, but now he was glad for the company. He’d drank enough for his tongue to loosen up, and having an audience would prevent him from saying something he shouldn’t. 

“Charles, your turn!” Margaret said, louder than necessary for the tight quarters. She had initially barged in looking for Klinger, only to find him on the floor propped against the center stove with his large nose drooping in a mug of the Pierce-Hunnicutt specialty brand of brew. She had looked about to throw a fit when Colonel Potter, three drinks deep in swill water himself, had told her whatever had lit her firecrackers could cool off until morning, and then asked if she wanted to stay. Hawkeye had cracked a crass joke out of telling her she could “come and go as she pleased,” but instead of storming out, she had plopped down on Charles’s footlocker next to Mulcahy and claimed she’d stay just to give the Father some decent company in this den of delinquents.

Charles heaved a dramatic sigh through his nostrils, but his eyes rolled upwards as he considered what counterfeit tales he could weave. It had taken a great deal of needling to get him to join in on the game, but he seemed to be enjoying the opportunity to tell the others what aspects of their lives he thought were absolute balderdash.

“One,” he began. “I have been to all the continents of the globe except Antarctica, although after having experienced winter in this wretched camp, I no longer feel the need to. 

“Two. I was the reigning champion of the Harvard Chess Club’s annual tournament throughout my post-graduate career and the majority of my residency. I would have likely kept my title if not for Jeremy Oldsdier, who beat me in the qualifying rounds during my last year in residency.

“Three. My family has a collection of antique vases that have been passed down the Winchesters for three generations. When I was in primary school, I knocked a particularly expensive artifact off a shelf, and it shattered into irreparable pieces. Rather than admit my mistake to my father, I blamed it on the butler, who was subsequently fired and blacklisted from employment with any of the wealthy Bostonian families. I felt terribly guilty since he really was quite a good butler, but to this day, only my sister Honoria knows the truth.”

“I say number one,” Potter said. “Travelin’ man such as yourself, I’m sure you’ve been there just to say you have.”

“I’m going with number three again,” Klinger said, “because if it were true, you wouldn’t have yelled at me so bad when I dropped that package containing all your fancy liquor bottles.”

“Me too. That is, me too for number three.” Radar yawned. “If you did feel that guilty over a little mistake, you wouldn’t be so mean to me neither.”

“Those _fancy liquor bottles_ happened to be twelve-year-old cognac gifted to me from my sister, and you didn’t just drop them, you _destroyed_ them,” Charles said to Klinger. “And you,” he jabbed at Radar, swaying a bit at the extravagance of the motion, “are such an incompetent clerk, you cannot tell the difference between a letter opener and a stapler, otherwise why else would I find my personal letters stapled to the bulletin board?”

“I told you, that wasn’t me!”

“Easy does it, Winchester.” Potter put a protective hand on Radar’s shoulder, but he leaned into him so heavily it looked more like the boy was propping him upright. “This is all just a little fun. Let’s let bygones be bygones.”

“Yeah, Charles. It’s not his fault those letters needed to be aired out. They were steamier than the broccoli they serve in the mess tent,” Hawkeye said.

“And creamier, too,” B.J. added.

Charles narrowed his eyes. “I should have known it was you buffoons all along. Who else would steal my correspondences with my mother and edit them into a disturbingly graphic order for cream puff cakes?”

B.J. raised his eyebrows at Hawkeye. “Did you hear that? He called us puffy.”

Hawkeye jabbed him with his toe, laughing. “Oh that’s truly terrible, fuck you.”

“Your place or mine?”

“Let’s do yours, we did mine last time.”

“I’ll have to clean up before you come over.”

“I don’t mind the mess, but are you going to take your socks off this time?”

“ _Gentleme-e-en_ ,” Charles sighed, “would you please submit your guesses so I can return to listening to the rats fornicating under my bunk rather than your disgusting drivel?”

“Fine,” Hawkeye said. “Number two. If you’re really a champion king-catcher, then why haven’t you ever waved your crown in our faces?”

“I agree.” B.J. smiled directly at Hawkeye. “He simply doesn’t _rook_ the part.” 

Hawkeye threw one of Klinger’s heels at him.

Charles chortled. “If you can actually find the pieces that go with that board you use as a table for your trinkets, I’m sure I could school both you idiots blindfolded.”

Hawkeye batted his eyelashes. “Oh Charles, that sounds just like the dream I had last night.”

“Did it take place in Hunnicutt’s bunk?” Margaret muttered into her bottle.

Hawkeye leered at her. “Actually, it took place in yours.”

Margaret returned his gaze stonily. “I’d watch what you say, mister. I know where you sleep.”

“Where will that be tonight, Margaret?”

She opened her mouth to take another crack at him, but Potter cut them off. “Cool it, you two. Fun, remember? Margaret, Padre, you still have to submit your guesses on Winchester’s fib.”

“Well, they all sounded pretty believable to me,” Mulcahy said, unperturbed by the influx of innuendo flying around. “Some might consider me to be pretty naive, but then I’m supposed to take everyone’s word at confessionals.” He snickered to himself. “My guess is number one.”

“Okay, that’s two for number one, t-two for number two, and t-t-two for number three,” Potter tallied, stuttering more through each headcount. “That means you’re the tie-breaker, Major.”

The circle looked to Margaret. She sighed. “Put me down for number two. I also don’t think you’re that good.”

Hawkeye and B.J. cheered and high-fived.

“I’m not agreeing with you! I just don’t think he could have held the title for that long without someone putting him in check.” 

“In check!” Hawkeye threw his head back and laughed so hard, his chair rocked onto its back legs. B.J. grabbed his wrist to prevent him from falling over and tried not to stare at his neck.

“Save your celebrating, imbeciles,” Charles sneered above the noise. “The false story was actually number one. Point to the Colonel and the Father, who somehow prevail as the voices of intelligence in this tent despite their otherwise uncultured palettes.”

“Wa-hoo!” Potter said, although it was hard to tell if he really knew what he was cheering for. Mulcahy’s brow furrowed at Charles’s culture jab, while everyone else grumbled and took a drink.

Hawkeye tipped back the rest of his glass. “Another one, Beej?”.

“Sure.” B.J. held out his glass for Hawkeye to grab as he staggered over to the still. “My mother always told me to drink my full serving of battery acid a day.” 

“My mother told me never to accept drinks from strange men, but she didn’t say anything about men accepting my strange drinks.” Hawkeye shoved a refilled glass into B.J.’s hand, fingers lingering over his wrist, before plopping back down in his chair. His foot reclaimed its spot under B.J.’s arm.

Klinger sat up a little straighter against the center stove, the fabric of his pretty floral skirt rustling as he shifted. “My turn now, and boy, I got some good ones! We have a couple relatively-fresh faces in this room who haven’t yet heard some of my greatest, most origininational Section 8 exploits!” He held up a wobbling finger. “Number one: I got married in a white wedding dress.”

“And the sky is blue when it’s sunny. Klinger, you gotta put more of a twist on ‘em then that,” Potter said. 

“Okay, okay! Gee, tough crowd.”

Hawkeye leaned over to him. “I told you to fluff the feathers in your fans before you came on tonight, Sally.”

Klinger tried to snap his fingers, but ended up just making a swinging hand motion. “Hey, here’s a better one! Alright, you all know I’d do anything to get out of here, even flying! So one time, I got this red glider from one of the P.X. merchants that comes through here, and I took it up to the cliffs above the camp and launched myself through the air! In just my dressing gown and slippers! I was like a—like a—like a big red bird with fuzzy pink feet!”

Hawkeye snickered and elbowed B.J., singing, “I know this one!”

Klinger slapped a heavy hand onto Hawkeye’s arm. “Don’t tell ‘em! I want them to guess!”

“I’ll stay out of it. I rescind my vote.” Hawkeye mimed zipping his lips.

Klinger nodded, satisfied. “That’s two. And for the third one—General Zimmer once visited, and I thought this was my big chance to make my Section 8. It was a nice fall day, and I really went all out for this man—floor-length periwinkle ballgown, pearls, a tiara, even new nylons that I traded Nurse Ginger for a half bottle of hooch. The General pulls into camp, and I come running outta my tent ready to swoon into his arms. I trip and break a heel—cheap pumps I picked up in Soul, you understand—but I don’t let that deter me! When I get there, Colonel Blake is already talking to him, and I throw out my arms and say ‘General, it’s me! Lady Maxine! I’ve been waiting so long for you to take me away from here!’ And the General goes, ‘I’ve never seen you before in my life.’ And I respond, ‘Of course you have, sir. Don’t you remember how we danced all night at the Officer’s Club in Tokyo?’ I’m so sure I got this guy on the ropes, but then Henry looks at me and says ‘Klinger, of course he’d remember you if he already met you. You’re the only one who leaves behind size-ten glass slippers!’”

The group erupted into laughter, even Margaret was wiping her eyes at the punchline. Radar giggled so hard, he tipped over on Hawkeye’s cot, and it took both Margaret and Potter to right him again.

Klinger mock-bowed from his seat on the floor, gold drop earrings jingling. “And that’s all! Place your guesses folks!”

“Obviously, it’s the second one,” Charles said. “That’s the only story that didn’t involve you masquerading as a princess.”

“I agree with Charles,” said Margaret. “I don’t remember that glider incident happening.”

“Same for me,” said Mulcahy.

“Chalk me down for that phony fib also,” Potter said. “I can’t see you risking your life like that, no matter no badly you’re bucking for that looney discharge.”

“What about you, Captain?” Klinger asked B.J.

B.J. lolled his head to the side, his ear brushing Hawkeye’s toe. “I’m gonna say number three.”

“What? Why?” Margaret demanded.

B.J. shrugged. “That’s my guess, and I’m sticking to it.”

“Radar? What’s your vote?” Potter gently shook the clerk, who appeared to be dozing into his hand again.

“Huh?” Radar blinked his eyes open. “What happened?”

“You gotta make a guess, son. Klinger just finished his stories. Haven’t you been paying attention?”

Radar dislodged his glasses and rubbed a fist into his eye. “Yeah, I been listening. I’ll guess whatever you guessed, Colonel, sir. I’m getting a little drowsy from all I had to drink tonight.”

“Radar, you’ve been drinking soda.” Hawkeye pointed at his bottle.

“An’ I drank a lot of it!”

Potter patted him. “That’s a majority for number two, then. Alright, Klinger, spit it out.”

Klinger grinned. “It was number three!”

The losers shouted in protest. Hawkeye clinked his glass against B.J.’s in acknowledgement before taking a sip.

“What are you talking about?” Margaret shouted. “I know exactly that blue dress, I’ve seen you wear it a hundred times!”

Klinger placed a hand over his heart, looking offended. “But never in autumn, Major! Periwinkle is a spring color!”

Mulcahy chuckled. “My, what a reminder of old times. Things sure were a bit different back then, weren’t they?”

Potter laughed, too. “You young’uns got up to some shenanigans before my time, huh? A wonder this unit is still standing.”

Hawkeye perked up. “Oh, you want some stories from the prequel gang, huh? That’s nothing compared to the shit Trapper and I used to get up to.” He made a big show out of clearing this throat while he picked out his best stories from memory.

“This one time, Trapper and I got leave for Tokyo. Three-day pass after saving some general’s son, and by god, we made the most of it. The highlights include, but are not limited to, sending a case of pipe cleaners to MacArthur’s table, running rickshaw races in the lobby of the Imperial Hotel, and terrorizing the Fujikawa bath house for an entire day.

“Another time, Trapper and I made up a whole person. We made him a captain, filled out a personnel file for him, got him assigned to O.D. duty and everything. We convinced Henry he ate every meal with this guy, and Frank acted like he was his best friend even though he’d never even seen him.” He broke into a fit of cackles that had him tipping onto the back legs of his chair again. He hooked his foot around B.J.’s arm to right himself, still laughing. “We requisitioned the army for fourteen months of backpay for him, and they actually paid us! ‘Course we donated it to the convent up the road, and when General Clayton wanted to do a story on him for _Stars and Stripes,_ we killed him off in a helicopter accident.”

“Hawkeye, you’re not talking about Captain Tuttle, are you?” Father Mulcahy asked.

“Tuttle?” Margaret cocked her head. “Why do I remember that name?”

“You should, you were in love with him for a week,” Hawkeye said.

Margaret scoffed and sat up straighter. “I was not! Why you lying sonuva—”

“Ah ah ah.” Hawkeye shook a finger. “I get one more story before you get to guess. Let’s see, what else is a good one?

“Oh! When we were first building the still, we drove down to Tai-Dong to get kabosu, and along the way, our jeep broke and we had to wait four hours for them to send a backup. While we were waiting, this caravan of traveling geisha happened to be passing by. Turns out they were missing two members of their troupe, saw two pretty G.I.’s stranded on the side of the road, and offered us a lift if we would fill in for their show. Trap and I were like, ‘hey our shamisen playing’s a little rusty, but what else are we gonna do for a ride?’ So they take us into town, dress us up in their kimonos, and we perform with them for the whole village! The villagers were _so_ impressed with us, three different elders offered us their daughters in marriage, and the group practically begged us to stay on with them full-time. We were really just there to make booze, but for all that attention, we’ve never been more tempted to run away together and become starlets!’” 

“Nuh-uh!” Radar, who everyone thought had finally fallen asleep, sat up so fast his Nehi bottle toppled onto the floor. “That didn’t happen! I was the one who drove youse guys all the way to Tai-Dong, but it was to get yuzu, and when the jeep broke down no girls came and I did all the work while you and Trapper spent the whole time screwing around in the backseat!”

“Radar!” Hawkeye nearly upended his own drink. “The point of the game is to guess! No one else knew that story, you can’t go around giving away people’s secrets like that! Now you’ve ruined it!”

“Lay off him, Pierce, that story was so full of bullshit everyone was gonna see right through it!” Margaret yelled back.

The whole tent dissolved into yelling about what was considered fair in giving away answers. Radar tried to defend himself, and Hawkeye screamed that no one had done that to Klinger, and Margaret shouted back that he deserved it worse, and Hawkeye snapped that she was just mad that her boyfriend was actually his imaginary friend, to which Margaret insisted that she remembered Tuttle because he was six-foot-four and had auburn hair, and Charles interjected that even Hawkeye’s true stories stank so much they belonged somewhere between the mess tent and the garbage heap, and Colonel Potter tried to call for quiet a few times but was so overpowered that he just sat back in his chair and sipped his drink.

Somewhere between Hawkeye’s tall tales and the shouting match, B.J.’s stomach had dropped. Hawkeye yanked his foot out from under him so he could lean over to argue better, leaving B.J. laying the wrong way on his cot with Hawkeye’s quip about temptation echoing in his ears. Even though it wasn’t directed at him, he couldn’t shake the prickling sensation that it had been somewhat personal.

“Beej?”

B.J. snapped out of his spiral only to realize he’d been glaring blankly in the direction of the still. He turned to find everyone staring at him. “What?”

“It’s your turn, buckaroo.” Potter eyed him like he was a skittish patient around the anesthesiologist. 

“Right.” From the read of the room, B.J. couldn’t tell who had won. He didn’t think he cared. He slung his legs over the side of his cot and drained the last of his moonshine.

“When I was in college, my fraternity got this tomcat. It was this ugly, scrawny thing that Joe Muggins had brought in from the back alley one day, and we cleaned it up and fed it milk and it stayed in that house long after we all graduated. It was the worst cat I’d ever met. It ripped up the curtains, pissed all over the carpet, hissed at anyone outside of the house who tried to pet it, and was just all-around unpleasant. I hated it more than any pet I’d ever had.

“My freshman year of high school, I flunked out of English. The class was at eight a.m., and the teacher had this soft, nasally voice that put me to sleep faster than a lullaby. For the final, I tried to copy off Billy Huckbard, but it turned out that he had been sleeping through class as much as I had, and we both ended up in summer school.”

He paused. He had the Swamp’s full attention again, but the air crackled with something different, like a dry summer day before a lightning storm. “And I’ve never been tempted to cheat on my wife.”

The group dispersed into discussion, split between how there couldn’t have possibly been a cat so bad and how B.J. couldn’t have possibly failed a high school class.

Only Hawkeye didn’t chime in with his opinion. B.J. didn’t look over, but he could feel his stare as if it were his hands on his skin. They had been sitting in almost these same positions when B.J.’d told him about Carrie Donovan.

B.J. hadn’t told anyone else what had happened, not even Peg. It scared him how easily he could keep that secret from her. At least, it should have.

“Come on, Hawkeye, place your bet,” Klinger said. “The cat or the test?”

B.J. finally turned to look at him and met his gaze straight on. Hawkeye searched his face. B.J. had no idea what he was seeing. 

Just before the moment stretched on too long, Hawkeye looked away. “The cat.”

B.J. pressed the corners of his mouth together in a smile. “Wrong! It was algebra I flunked.”

Sounds of disbelief clattered throughout the tent. B.J. leaned back on his elbows and gestured for Potter to take his turn.

He didn’t know why he had tested Hawkeye just then, or if it even was a test. If it was, he wasn’t sure whether Hawkeye had passed or failed. All he knew was that the taste of homemade gin suddenly didn’t sit well at the back of this throat.

While he hadn’t flunked out of English, he hadn’t really failed algebra either. It was true he had slept through the class every day, but he’d crammed enough for the final to pull off the C+ he needed to pass.

And he’d loved that cat.

* * *

When Hawkeye opened the door on a frigid evening in February, he probably expected to see one of his neighbors on his front porch asking to borrow some eggs. Or maybe someone had fallen off a roof and needed him to set a broken radius. Or maybe he had friends that came over for poker on Sunday nights and he thought one of them had gotten there a little early. Instead, he saw B.J., shivering despite wearing a thick blue parka with the fur-lined hood drawn around his face.

“Howdy stranger.” B.J. grinned. “I’m new in town, do you think you could direct me to the post office?”

“Beej.” Hawkeye blinked. The war had been officially over for seven months, but Hawkeye in jeans was an odd sight. B.J. thought he recognized the red-checkered flannel, but he didn’t recognize the knitted black socks.

“So, the post office,” B.J. said, when Hawkeye didn’t elaborate. “You know, because all my letters from Crabapple Cove haven’t been getting delivered the past two months.”

“Beej,” Hawkeye said again. “Is that really you?”

“In the flesh. Although my skin won’t be so rosy for much longer if I—”

Hawkeye crashed into him and wound his arms around his neck. B.J. rocked back a few steps to get his balance before hugging him back. He pressed his face into Hawkeye’s shoulder, part to keep warm and part to convince himself that Hawkeye was a physical being and not a figment of his frost-bitten imagination.

From the strength of his hug, Hawkeye seemed to be trying to convince himself of the same thing. He pulled back, but his hands still gripped B.J.’s shoulders through his coat. “Beej! You’re here!” He laughed. B.J. had missed the sound so much, he would have started crying if his tears hadn’t frozen in his eyeballs.

Hawkeye pulled him into another hug. B.J. laughed, too, as they shuffled around on Hawkeye’s front porch, clinging to each other like drowning men to a life preserver.

“You’re here?” Hawkeye pulled away again, but they still didn’t take their hands off each other. “What the hell are you doing here? You’re supposed to be in Mill Valley.”

“I told you, I’m looking for my missing letters.”

Hawkeye’s smile wavered. “Right.”

Before he could say anything else, a voice from inside the house called, “Ben? Who’s out there? Would you invite them in already?”

“Oh!” Hawkeye dragged B.J. inside by a fistful of his jacket. B.J. barely had time to grab his duffel from where he’d dropped it on the porch.

“Dad! It’s B.J.!” Hawkeye pushed him further in so he could shut the door. B.J. relished the feeling of breathing without feeling icicles form in his moustache.

The Pierces’ house was somehow exactly the way B.J. had expected. The front hallway opened into a cozy living room with a stone fireplace, a couch with a knitted cream blanket draped over the back, and a lumpy armchair. In the far corner was a phonograph on a table next to a floor-to-ceiling bookshelf crammed with books and records. 

A man emerged from the hallway leading to the back of the house. “So this is the infamous B.J. Hunnicutt.”

B.J. gave a half wave. “Dr. Pierce. Seems like my reputation precedes me.”

Dr. Pierce sized him up. “You appear to be every inch the man of Ben’s tall tales.” He looked a lot like his son—thin and long-limbed, although a few inches shorter than Hawkeye. He had a full head of silver hair that was probably once black, and he wore thin-framed round glasses and an oversized purple cardigan. When B.J. reached out his gloved hand for a handshake, Dr. Pierce clasped it firmly in both of his. “And please, call me Daniel. Hell, you can even call me Dad. I know so much about you, you’re practically a second son.”

“ _Dad_ ,” Hawkeye said between his teeth.

Daniel ignored him. “I’m sure you’re hungry. Lucky you, you’re just in time for dinner.” He smiled the same way as his son, with his whole face instead of just his mouth. “Ben, why don’t you take your friend’s coat, and I’ll get an extra plate?” He clapped Hawkeye on the shoulder before turning around a corner, presumably to the kitchen.

Hawkeye rolled his eyes while B.J. shed his winter layers. “I’ve been trying to transfer him into a nursing home, but he says he wants the approval of a doctor with an unbiased opinion. Now that you’re here, maybe you can sign off on his mental deficiency and I can finally have some peace in this house.” 

If B.J. hadn’t known how much Hawkeye admired his dad, he might have missed the joke. “I’ll keep a close eye on him and submit my full report to you in the morning, doctor.” He shucked off the parka.

Hawkeye turned it around in his hands. “Is this the same coat you got—”

“From the Sears catalogue in ‘51? Sure is.” 

“Wasn’t it ‘52?”

B.J. shrugged. “Fifty-whatever. Could’ve been 1980 for all I know. Not that I need a winter coat in California, but I paid such good money for it, it felt like a waste to throw it away.”

“I kept mine, too.” Hawkeye hung it on a hook above the shoe rack. The Pierces didn’t seem to have a coat closet. “I got rid of all my other army clothes the second I hit civilian soil.”

“I haven’t touched mine. I think Peg threw out my fatigues, but the Class A’s are probably shoved in a box in the attic somewhere.” B.J. bent to unlace his shoes. “Listen, I was gonna try to get a hotel for tonight, but then the storm blew in and I got lost trying to find your house—”

“Nonsense, you’re staying here. You can take my room, I’ll take the couch.”

“Hawk, I really can’t put you out like that.”

“Fine, fine, we can set you up in the office. It’s kind of a mess, but there’s a spare cot.” 

“I really don’t want to be any trouble—”

“Would you cut that out? You’re no trouble. Besides, I can’t turn your delicate, Californian skin out to this weather. It’d be breaking my Hippocratic oath.” He grabbed B.J.’s duffel and started for the back hallway.

“Oh, you don’t have to—”

Hawkeye waved him away. “Forget it. I gotta get dry socks anyway.”

“Hey Hawk?”

Hawkeye stopped to look at him over his shoulder. “What?”

B.J. stared at him. He couldn’t believe it’d been over half a year since he’d seen him last, waving goodbye from the passenger seat of a helicopter in Korea. “It’s really good to see you again.”

Hawkeye’s smile bloomed over his face. “It’s good to see you, too.” He turned and disappeared into another room.

B.J. took a deep breath. Maybe he should have called, but after his last attempt on New Year’s and another month spent tearing out his hair, Peg had all but shoved him out the door with a plane ticket and a pre-packed duffel. _Go and see him already. He’s your best friend, he won’t turn you away._ He’d hoped she would be right. She was always right.

Heart beating in his ears, he wandered in the direction that Daniel had left in. He passed through a hallway full of picture frames, rows and rows of smiling faces packed so tightly he couldn’t see the wallpaper. Hawkeye was an only child, but the Pierces seemed to have quite the extended family, an entire wall of grandparents, aunts, uncles, and cousins. He found himself drawn to a picture near the edge of a little boy with black hair and a crooked nose, soaking wet, grinning, and holding a fish. B.J. ran his fingers along the frame.

“Summer of ‘27.”

B.J. jumped at Daniel’s presence near his elbow, snatching his hand away from the picture like it was a hot stove.

Daniel smiled an apology. He nodded at the photo. “First one he landed himself. The St. Croix River’s about an hour north from here. My brother and I used to take the kids every other Saturday and spend the morning up to our knees in river water. Hawkeye was so determined to reel this one in, he chased him halfway up the river. I was so scared he was going to get swept away in a current and drown—boy was always skinny as a twig—but so proud when he pulled it off. We drove up to that river every summer until he went away to school, but after that day, he never let his old man help him bait his hooks anymore.”

“Sounds like a happy childhood.” B.J.’s father hadn’t taught him to fish. He’d learned from his Uncle Vince the one summer he and his sister had stayed at his farm in Montana while their parents went on an anniversary trip to Europe. That had been the last time B.J. had seen his uncle. It took him years later to understand why his father was so upset to find out Vince’s friend Jack lived with him on the farm.

“I hope it was,” Daniel said softly. “It wasn’t the same after Evelyn passed, but well, I like to think I did the best I could.” 

“Your best couldn’t have been better,” B.J. said. “Your son’s a good man.”

Daniel’s gaze shifted from the photo to B.J. Hawkeye must have inherited his striking blue eyes from his mother; Daniel’s were dark brown. “Yes, he is.”

As if on cue, Hawkeye’s footsteps thudded down the stairs, then stopped in the hallway. “So that’s why my ears are suddenly burning.”

Daniel raised his eyebrows and exited the hallway. “And here we thought you’d stood us up and I’d have to entertain B.J. with a romantic dinner all alone.”

“I was setting up the office for him.” Hawkeye stepped around B.J. to chase after his dad, his chest brushing against B.J.’s shoulder as he passed. B.J. followed them both into the dining room. “I thought we should change the sheets after Mrs. Punderling rubbed her wart-infested feet all over them this afternoon.”

“Then what were you doing upstairs?”

“I had to change my socks!”

“That’s what you get for dancing around in the snow without your galoshes, or do you not remember from when you were four?”

Hawkeye groaned. “Dad, no, do _not_ start on this one again.” Even as they argued, they worked in tandem to set the table, pull up another chair, and prepare a third plate. Daniel placed a slice of fish on the plate and passed it to Hawkeye, who spooned on some green beans and passed it back to Daniel to fill with potatoes.

“Start on what one?” B.J. asked, grinning when Hawkeye glared at him.

“Our boy’s always been a bit of a firecracker.” Daniel set the finished plate down at the spot to his right. “Never did learn to look where he was running. We were at my folks’ place in Spruce Harbor for Easter—” and he launched into a twisting tale involving a four-year-old Hawkeye, his cousin Billy, a toothbrush, and a baby bunny that ended with Hawkeye and Billy running a mile barefoot in the snow all to get a handful of cranberries.

Hawkeye, although initially resistant at the telling of this tale, interjected with his own bits of the story that Daniel hadn’t got quite right and laughed just as hard as the rest of them when he reached its conclusion. The Pierces both shared the same honking laugh that convulsed their entire bodies, bad habit of talking with their mouth full, penchant for crafting stories for captive audiences, and whip-crack sense of humor. Daniel didn’t gesture as much as Hawkeye did when he was engrossed in painting a verbal picture, but he met his son’s jokes and puns blow-for-blow in a way that had B.J. choking on his green beans with laughter. For all the times B.J.’d thought he and Hawk were sharing brain patterns, he didn’t seem to hold a candle to the dynamic duo of Drs. Pierce and Pierce.

The conclusion of the cranberry caper led Hawkeye to telling his dad about the time he and B.J. stole all the peas and carrots in the mess tent and filled Frank’s fox holes, gesturing occasionally at B.J. to fill in the details. B.J. wished he was sitting pressed against Hawkeye like they were trying to occupy the same square foot of bench, but he also enjoyed his view across the table, allowing him to witness Hawkeye dive fully into the character of storyteller. B.J. watched him like he was trying to memorize his act—the crooked way he sat with one leg propped up on the chair seat, his slender fingers waving his fork around like a conductor’s baton, the line of his throat when he laughed with his head thrown back.

As the story wound down, he caught Daniel looking at him with a soft smile. B.J. averted his eyes and took a long drink of water. Perhaps his poker face was slipping.

They talked until the food got cold, and then they talked some more. Daniel asked what kind of trouble B.J. had gotten up to in California when he was younger, and B.J. deflected. He didn’t feel like talking about how he had quickly learned that you never got in trouble only if you never got caught. Daniel didn’t press him. 

After dinner, the Pierces cleared the table the same way they had set it, trading stacks of dishes between them without dropping a beat from their narration of another of Hawkeye’s childhood escapades. B.J. tried to stay out of their way, shy about interrupting their rhythm, but then Daniel asked if he could carry plates into the kitchen and shoved the pile in his hands without waiting for the answer.

“I still have your fourth grade report card,” Daniel was saying as he shuffled containers of leftovers around in their overstuffed fridge. “Mrs. Hettler specifically documented your confession where you proudly took credit. She called you both insubordinate and disrespectful.”

“I didn’t steal those pencils, I only picked them off the ground before Ralph Anderson could put them in his desk. Fair transference of public property. Just because he’s the principal’s kid doesn’t mean he gets to hoard all the sharpened pencils,” Hawkeye said, balancing cups and serving plates in his arms. “She didn’t even see me do it. She was too busy catching Tommy taking the nice erasers out of her desk drawer.”

B.J. handed his plate pile to Hawkeye. “If you would’ve gotten away with it, why’d you confess?”

Hawkeye looked at him funny. “Why wouldn’t I? It’s not like I did anything wrong.” 

B.J. looked to Daniel, who only shrugged. “Most of Ben’s teachers had a tendency to . . . overstate certain issues. He’s never been one to keep to himself what’s on his mind.”

“I simply believe every kid should have the right to equal and inalienable writing utensils.” Hawkeye stacked the rest of the dishes in the sink. “Care for a nightcap, Dad?”

“Nah, I’m off to bed. I promised a house call to Mrs. Punderling tomorrow morning.” Daniel delivered the last line with a wink at B.J.

“Oh, I see, the old man wants to go to bed at a decent hour. What’d I tell ya, Beej?” Hawkeye pulled two glasses out of a cupboard. “How am I supposed to knock around the house when he wants to do normal human things like sleep?”

“And I keep telling you, Ben, you can move out any time, have all the late-night guests you’d like. You don’t need to hover in this house when I’m a long ways away from haunting it.”

“And do my own dishes? I’d rather be drafted back into the army.” Hawkeye busied himself by inspecting the glassware, but B.J. noticed how his shoulders tightened.

He wasn’t the only one. Daniel caught his eye. “Well, you two kids can stay up and have some fun. Just don’t burn the place down. The insurance policy doesn’t renew until next month.” He clapped B.J. on the shoulder and winked again. B.J. pretended not to know what it meant. 

“Goodnight, Dad,” Hawkeye said pointedly.

Daniel held up his hands. “I’m going, I’m going. Night, Ben. Night, B.J.”

“Uh, goodnight.” B.J. was starting to suspect he might be getting shanghaied into something.

Hawkeye still had his back to BJ., examining bottles in the cabinet over the stove. “So, will you sign off on his internment papers?”

“Sure you don’t want to wait until after he pays the insurance premium?”

“Hey, that’s smart thinking. I don’t know about you, but my vet’s benefits don’t exactly cover shit.” After some fidgeting, he made his selection and uncorked an amber bottle.

B.J. wandered closer to look over his shoulder. “By chance is that twelve-year-old scotch?”

“Sure, or it will be six years from now.” Hawkeye poured them each three fingers. He placed the bottle back in the cabinet and handed B.J. his glass. “I don’t drink gin anymore, tastes like water.”

B.J. understood without him having to say the rest. “I throw up whenever I eat olives.”

Hawkeye smiled crookedly. “Whatever do you put on your pizza?”

“Spinach and mushrooms.”

“Bullshit. You? Eat real vegetables?”

“I have to do something to fake fitting in to Californian high society. It was either change my diet or buy a yacht, and as you said, our vet’s benefits don’t cover shit.”

Hawkeye responded with the tight smile he gave on the rare occasions he was biting his tongue. He swept out a hand and put on a posh accent. “Shall we retire to the drawing room, old sport?”

B.J. replied with an accent of his own. “Indeed, good sir.” He followed Hawkeye into the living room. 

Hawkeye gestured for B.J. to make himself comfortable while he put another log on the fire and picked out a record. B.J. settled onto one side of the couch and watched Hawkeye thumb through albums with the same reverence he had fingered his liquor bottles. He finally made his selection and set the needle on the record player. Fred Astaire sang the opening verse of “You’re Easy to Dance With” as Hawkeye returned to the sitting area and plopped into the armchair. B.J. pushed down his disappointment that Hawkeye hadn’t elected to sit next to him, but then Hawkeye swung his legs over the arm of the chair, sitting sideways so he could face B.J.

B.J. sniffed his scotch before taking a sip, letting the first taste linger on his tongue before swallowing. “Oh, this is good.”

“Of course, it’s a special occasion.” Hawkeye wiggled his fingers and continued in his faux-snooty voice. “Only fine liquor and fine musical entertainment for our guests with esteemed tastes.”

“I think Charles would have an aneurysm if he heard you call _Holiday Inn_ esteemed musical entertainment.”

“Well, he’s a snot and hasn’t been invited to the club this evening.”

“Do you see him ever? Charles?”

If the question surprised Hawkeye, he didn’t show it. “No. He wrote me a few times. Even sent me a Christmas present, can you believe it? Course I didn’t get it until end of January, by which time it was far too late to send him something for Chanukah.”

“Did you write him back?”

Hawkeye leveled him with a look. He’d forgotten how easily Hawkeye could read him. “Beej, I did write you.”

“Not for two months.”

Hawkeye sighed. He took a drink before balancing his glass on his stomach. “I meant to, okay? I just never quite got around to it.”

“What, you been too busy playing town doctor to drop a line to an old pal?” B.J. tried to keep his voice neutral, but he wasn’t sure if he was succeeding. 

From the look on Hawkeye’s face, he guessed no. “I don’t know. There’s so much I wanna tell you, but most of it is about nothing at all, you know? And I didn’t want to take up your time with silly day-to-day stuff when you finally get a chance to live your life.”

B.J.’s stomach shifted. He took a drink. “Tell me anyway, the silly stuff about your life, and I’ll tell you mine.”

“Beej—”

“We can make it a game, for old time’s sake. Tell me three things about yourself, but make one of them a lie.”

A smile started to creep back over Hawkeye’s face, remembering. “And the other guy will have to guess which one is the lie.”

“Exactly. You go first.”

“No no, it was your idea, genius. You do the honors.”

“Fine.” B.J. propped his feet up on the coffee table. He had a feeling Daniel wouldn't mind. “Erin will only eat oatmeal for breakfast or else she throws a fit, we got a second dog, and our neighbor cuts his grass at exactly three p.m. every Monday.”

Hawkeye studied him. “It’s the dog one. You wrote me in October you guys just adopted a kitten.”

B.J. lifted his glass in a salute before taking a sip, conceding the point. “That was your warm-up. Your turn.”

Hawkeye tilted his head towards the ceiling. “Dad insists we take a walk every day, our grocer has been out of pickles for two weeks, and I’ve taken up woodworking.”

“The first one. I’ve never seen you willingly exercise in my life.”

“And I still don’t. It’s just walking. I’m not much of a fan of it in winter here, but we go to the woods at the end of the lane and look at the trees. Anyway, come on, Beej! Can you see me woodworking?”

B.J. shrugged. “Actually, yeah. It can’t be much different than knitting, right? I know you like to keep busy with your hands.”

Hawkeye wiggled his eyebrows. “Oh don’t you know it.” It was enough on the cusp of a dirty joke without crossing the line, wherever that was. “That’s two for you, mister.”

B.J. took a drink, then smacked his lips and prepared for a longer story sequence. “I took Erin to this bakery downtown to look at cakes for Peg’s birthday. I set her down for just a second, and before I knew it, she had gotten her little hands on an entire stack of cookies. I ended up paying for half the shop out of pocket.

“A week ago, Oliver—that’s our kitten, remember, cutest little calico I’ve ever seen, but a real stinker. Loves tormenting poor Waggles. Last week, Waggles was taking a nap on the hardwood in the living room in the spot of sunshine Oliver’s come to love. The little man didn’t like that, so he stuck his claws right into Waggles rump! I have never heard that dog howl so bad before.” B.J. stopped to laugh, and was pleased to hear Hawkeye join in, too.

“What’s your third one?” Hawkeye asked when they both caught their breath.

“I have a friend who owns a sailboat in the bay. Old buddy from high school. We used to do everything together, we were practically inseparable. We go out fishing every once in a while, and this one time last fall, we were out on his boat, had been for a couple hours, but nothing was biting. We were just about to pack up and head home, when suddenly there’s a tug on my line. I start reeling it in, but the fucker keeps fighting me. Tommy’s at the stern cheering me on, and I’m reeling and I’m reeling, and twenty minutes later, I finally get him close enough to see that it’s this huge sturgeon, he was easily over five feet long!” B.J. had set his glass down on the table so he could mime along with the story. He noticed Hawkeye tracking his arms. “And I get him up to the edge of the boat, and right as I’m about to land him”—he snapped his fingers—”the line breaks.”

“What!” Hawkeye cried.

“Clean-cut. I lost him.” B.J. spread his hands to indicate the end of the story. He picked his glass back up. “Alright, take your pick.”

“The first one. I don’t think you had to pay for half the store.”

“Well, not exactly—”

“Ah-ha!”

“—but that’s not the lie.”

“You can only tell one lie!”

“It’s not a lie, it’s an exaggeration.”

“That’s still cheating.”

“I didn’t think we had any rules.”

He meant it as a joke, the kind of light banter that had always volleyed between them, but Hawkeye looked at him as if he had punched him. “Of course there are rules.”

His tone made B.J. feel off-balance. “Okay, I won’t do it again. But you still have to guess.” On the record, Fred and Bing Crosby were arguing with their love interest over whose talent would capture her heart.

“Fine.” Hawkeye shifted in his chair so he could lean forward. “Waggles was in the bedroom, not the living room.”

B.J. shook his head. “Wrong again.”

“You landed the fish!”

“Nope! But that’s the phony story. I haven’t even been fishing with Tommy since high school.”

Hawkeye smacked his knee. “You mean that whole thing was made up? You utter rat!” But he took a drink. The record sang, _If you could dance instead of sing, I’d learn to love you somehow._

B.J. pasted on his sweetest smile. “We never said what kind of lies they had to be.” _If you could sing instead of dance, I’d take you home with me now._ He and Tom Nortum hadn’t even been that close. They had just been partners once on a book report and went out on Tommy’s father’s boat instead of studying. B.J. had always wished they’d gotten to know each other better. He’d liked making Tommy laugh.

“Yours are usually either ‘exaggerations’, though, or you tell it straight but shift events two inches to the left,” Hawkeye said. 

B.J. pressed the corners of his mouth together. Of course that was what Hawkeye thought. B.J. knew better—any lie was easy to swallow if it tasted enough like the truth. “Your turn to tell me a lie.”

Hawkeye swung his legs back over the arm of the chair. “Four days ago, we got so much snow we couldn’t get out the back door. At least three feet. I had a house call to the Evans’ kids. They live on the north side and the twins, boy and a girl, came down with pneumonia. After spending three hours trying to dig our driveway out, I ended up phoning them and telling them if they were still sniffling to feed them some chicken soup and send them to bed, and I’d be over to check on them in the spring.

“Before the storm came in, so that was what? Tuesday? Dad and I went out ice fishing on a lake a couple miles out. We packed Dad’s truck full of blankets, beer, and jerky, drove all the way to the lake and hauled everything out on the ice, only to realize we left the hooks sitting on the counter back home.

“Alright, and then, uh, Dad has this poker group he plays with once a month. They taught me how to play when I was a kid, and they always let me join in whenever I came home from med school. Since they taught me everything I know, I used to come out of these games more in debt than I paid in, but now I can whip their asses so hard, my winnings pay the electric bills.”

“It’s the poker one,” B.J. said. “You bluff so bad, you were always the first to lose your pants in Korea.” _The way you sing don't mean a thing, you'd better stick to your dance._

“Wrong! It was the fishing one. What do you mean I bluff bad?”

“Come on, Hawk, even Radar could clean you out.”

“You know how I let the kid win! Otherwise he’d get all sad and mopey and turn his big brown eyes on me like I’d shot his rabbit!”

“I could always tell when you were faking it.”

“Oh, you think you know me so well, do you? You got all my tells? Fat lotta good it’s doing you now, huh? Drink up.”

B.J. drank. “This isn’t poker.”

“I’d ask if you want to up the stakes, but we’ve already discussed how little our vet’s benefits are worth.” Their voices had risen during their exchange, but now Hawkeye settled back down. “Actually, I learned most of it from you.”

“Learned what?”

“How to bluff.” When B.J. didn’t respond, Hawkeye fluttered a hand. “You smile different when you’re lying. You don’t show any teeth.” _And as for you, your dance won't do, you'll have to sing for romance._

B.J.’s gut twisted. He smiled without teeth. “Now who knows who?”

Hawkeye flicked his gaze up to meet his, then looked away. “I don’t know. Your turn.”

B.J. was dimly aware they were creeping closer towards something they hadn’t before, maybe that line that hadn’t been crossed, but it was as if it kept moving. He wasn’t sure he’d even know what it was until he went too far. 

“On Sunday afternoons, I take Erin to the playground a couple of blocks away from the house. There’s a group of little neighbor boys that are usually there around the same time. They’re all maybe a year or so older than her, so I was afraid they’d start picking on her, but they always play with her real nice. I think one of them’s sweet on her, actually, but I’ve been keeping a close eye on him. 

“I tried to do laundry the other day while Peg was at work. Compared to being put on laundry duty at the 4077, I thought working the machine would feel like a breeze. I guess I’m still used to everything being khaki, because I just threw a bunch of shit in there and turned it on, including this beautiful new sweater Peg’s friend Dorothy made for her. Turned both mine and Peg’s work shirts purple.

“I shaved the mustache off in August, but Peg said she missed it so much, I just had to grow it back.”

Hawkeye smirked. “She did not miss that lip rug.”

“No, she didn’t.” B.J. laughed and took a drink. “But I grew it back anyway.”

“What in the name of all that is unholy for?”

“Dunno. Guess I didn’t feel the same without it.” There’d always been a certain pattern their conversations had to follow, not unlike a dance. Even after months apart, B.J. still knew the steps by heart, knew that some truths were better told as lies. 

The song on the record changed to Fred jollily singing “I Can’t Tell a Lie.”

If Hawkeye noticed the irony, he didn’t comment. “The first time I went to the grocery store, I got so sick looking at the cans of creamed corn, I threw up in the bathroom. Dad noticed I stopped joining him for dinner if it came out of a can. Can you believe I’m a grown man in his thirties who’s been to war and back and I can’t eat mushy peas?

“There’s a park behind the general store that’s got this nice pond, couple big oak trees, and some benches by the water. Dad and I stop by sometimes when neither of us has a house call, but most times I go and sit by myself. I figure the most eligible bachelor in Crabapple Cove can’t be seen with his father all the time, or no one will ever ask for my hand in marriage. So far, it isn’t working. That’s my third one by the way. Between acting as aid to the ageing and being an alcoholic shut-in, this is the longest I’ve gone without sex since I was fourteen.”

“I call bullshit,” B.J. said.

“Okay, fine. I actually did get a proposal from Mrs. Punderling, who’s about ten years older than Dad and completely blind in one eye, not to mention the state of her feet. I turned her down out of the small amount of decency I have, but now I’m thinking I should have taken her up on it for the inheritance.” Hawkeye drank. “The sex part is true.”

“You, the greatest debaucherer in both North and South Korea? Experiencing a dry spell?” B.J. made sure to put his teeth into his smile. 

It must have been convincing, because Hawkeye responded with a familiar leer. “Well it’s not as if I’m expecting a tall glass of water to come knocking on my door anytime soon.”

“Of course not, it would freeze before it got up your driveway.”

Hawkeye laughed. “God, can we make a rule against terrible puns?”

“Aw, Hawk, why the cold shoulder?”

“You are so fucking Californian, can’t stand a little deep freeze.”

“Funny, that’s what I said to Peggy this winter. It was in the forties right before Christmas, and she kept complaining about the cold. I told her it was a good thing I brought back my winter coat from Korea.”

“It’s a nice-ass coat,” Hawkeye said.

“That’s also what I told her—it does wonders for padding the posterior,” B.J. said, earning another laugh from Hawkeye. “I let her wear it for a day, and next thing you know she’s complaining about the heat.

“I nearly forgot about Christmas until Peg asked me to pull presents out of the attic on Christmas Eve. Remember how we made such a big deal out of holidays? Those parties we threw in the mess tent that were really just special excuses to get drunk? Everyone always had so much fun, but I remember being miserable because I knew it was another milestone I was missing with Erin. I thought when I finally got to celebrate with her, I’d be able to enjoy it, but I guess when every day I get to see her already feels special, I just don’t care about holidays like I once did.

“I kinda miss winter, though. I don’t miss freezing my toes off from trying to sleep in a tent every night, but I wish Erin could see snow. Someday I’ll bring her here for Christmas, and you can teach her how to build a snowman.”

Hawkeye’s expression had shifted to something torn between fond and sad. “That’s the lie, you don’t miss winter.”

“I do too! I would never live somewhere where you get three feet of snow overnight, but a little dusting on the grass is pretty. Actually, it didn’t really get that cold in San Francisco. I’d forgotten I even had that coat until Peg dug it out of the attic right before I left to see you.” B.J. worried he might have revealed too much. Hawkeye could start a fight over the tiniest thing he’d said, all while being simultaneously oblivious to the thing that marked B.J.’s chest like a bloodstain. 

Hawkeye only said, “Uh-huh,” in that way he did when he knew something B.J. didn’t but wouldn’t tell him what it was. 

B.J. felt like he’d tripped again, like they were trying to tap dance to the tune of a waltz.

Hawkeye took a drink and swirled the scotch around in his mouth before swallowing. “As soon as I got to my Dad’s house after . . . you know, I slept for a week. I only woke up at weird times in the night when I’d get hungry, and I’d eat half a loaf of bread and then go right back to sleep. It really freaked Dad out. He said he kept coming to check on me, but I’d be so unresponsive, I was practically comatose. He said he was just about to call the city hospital, but then I was back to normal by the weekend. Or, well, you know that line, too.

“Did I already tell you this? If I have, pretend I didn’t. I forget things all the time. Important things like where I put my keys, or to pick up milk when I go to the store, or even that the water in the shower will actually be the temperature I turn the nozzle to. Sometimes I feel like Korea’s burned into my memory, every awful experience of it, but I think I forget most of what happened there, too. Until I remember, that is, then it’s all I can think about. And a memory will knock around and around in my head, like those ping pong balls we swiped from that bar in Tokyo, remember? That’s what I mean by the memories. I don’t remember the names of any of the kids we sewed together or even what their wounds were, but I remember those stupid ping pong balls.”

He trailed off before telling his third one. “And I get a full eight hours of sleep every single night and wake up feeling rested and refreshed every morning.”

Even if B.J. didn’t know about Hawkeye’s chronic insomnia, his voice inflection would have given him away. He took a drink rather than call him out. He licked scotch off his lips. “When I first got back, my nightmares were so bad, I would wake Erin. One night, I stayed awake until I knew Peg was asleep, then I took all of our spare blankets and piled them in front of the couch downstairs. Best night’s sleep I’d had in a month. Been sleeping on the floor ever since.

“Our neighbors drive this rusty old Chevy, and one day, one of their tires popped when they were pulling out of the driveway. There was this loud bang, and I was sweating before I even knew what I’d heard. I went over to help them change it, but the back of my neck was prickling because I kept thinking about the time our jeep broke down leaving Kimpo on my first day and we changed a tire while getting shot at by snipers.”

He paused to take a breath. Bing Crosby sang the opening to “Be careful, It’s My Heart.” _It’s not my watch you’re holding, it’s my heart_. “You know how I said I put veggies on my pizza to fit in? I don’t think it’s working. All I ever wanted was to get back to Mill Valley, but it doesn’t feel right anymore, and I think it’s because of the noise. It’s not that the city is too loud, aside from our neighbors running over the occasional thumbtack, it’s the opposite. Everything’s so quiet, and big. Whenever I’m not in the same room as Erin where I can’t see or hear her, I’m afraid she’s gonna disappear from me forever. You know, we spent years listening to choppers and ambulances and being packed in with people in post-op and the mess tent and even the shower line, and now that I’m back”—he stumbled around the word—“home, it’s like it’s just me in my own head.”

Hawkeye waited for B.J. to continue. He didn’t. “The car one?”

B.J. shook his head. “The first one’s true, except I only slept on the floor for a week.” He didn’t mention that he still wasn’t sleeping upstairs. “Still get nightmares, though, some worse than others. Usually when something happens that reminds me of Korea, and the thing is I don’t even know what it is until I dream about it.”

Hawkeye’s forlorn expression had returned, like it did when B.J. was upset about something he couldn’t help fix. He shifted in his chair and placed his feet flat on the floor. He took a drink. Bing Crosby crooned, _It's yours to take to keep or break, but please before you start, be careful it's my heart._

“I know I said I wanted to play the small-town doctor role, focus on helping my neighbors instead of assembly-line surgery on people I’ll never see again. I think Dad is grooming me to take over his practice so he can finally retire. A couple weeks ago, Harold Druskel stepped on a broken bottle and got glass in his foot, like when Clayton Kibbee spun out on your motorbike and we drove out to patch him up on the side of the road, remember? God, what a sonuvabitch. Did you see that bullshit article he wrote about sending U.S. troops to Vietnam? Wasn’t sticking our nose into one country where we didn’t belong enough? Anyway, Harold’s foot wasn’t that bad, but it was still the bloodiest mess I’d seen since I got back. I must’ve froze, because Dad asked me if we wanted to take him to the general hospital, but I told him I could handle it. Which I did. Cleaned up fine, no complications, should be walking again this week.

“The funniest thing isn’t how an accident-prone drunk transported me twelve thousand miles back to the war, or even that removing glass is really no different than removing shrapnel. No, the funniest thing is that while I was operating I realized how much I missed it. Like it hit me in the chest like a, I don’t know, like a grenade. Or maybe more like a shot of adrenaline. And when I was done I said ‘table now open for one,’ and I think I was actually disappointed there was no one else. Isn’t that fucked up? Do you know how much I hate myself for actually missing Korea? Worst experience of our lives and yet it’s ingrained so deeply in my brain, it’s like a layer of dirt I can’t scrub off. 

“But it’s not just the surgery, or how I’m claustrophobic but now my bedroom feels too large for one person, or how sometimes I still forget what food is supposed to taste like and start crying when Dad makes pasta. It’s the fucking little memories that take me back there, back to all the people who were stuck with us. I’ll see a pretty dress in a shop window and wonder what Klinger would think of the hemline. Or Dad will put on his Tchaikovsky Symphony No. 6 record after dinner and I’ll think of teasing Charles for his highbrow music. Or we’ll go fishing in the St. Croix river and I’ll think of Henry and Potter, or I’ll be with one of Dad’s patients and I’ll make a lewd joke and look over my shoulder to see if Margaret will laugh. You know I’m not Catholic, but some Sundays I’ll sit in on mass at St. James next to the library and choke up when the priest gets to the sermon, even though Father Schwarz’s preaching could never sparkle like our Francis Mulcahy. 

“And you. God, everything reminds me of you. I stopped answering your letters because I thought it would help me miss you less, like if I stopped writing out all my thoughts to you as if you were still here, I wouldn’t think about you so much, but it doesn’t go away. Tell you what, sometimes I miss you so much, I can hardly stand it.” 

Hawkeye had been directing his speech at the coffee table, uncharacteristically still, save for his fingers twitching around his glass. He looked up at B.J. 

B.J. held his breath.

As suddenly as the moment began, it ended. Hawkeye looked away. “Oh, uh, and my skin turns purple any time I eat bacon.” He wiggled a hand in an exaggerated flourish, a fumbling attempt to put their dance back on beat—two steps forward, one step back.

B.J. slowly drained his glass. When he finished, he held it loosely between his knees. “I quit surgery, Peg and I are getting divorced, and I’m in love with you.”

He kept his eyes on Hawkeye’s face, but he’d gone still again. The record had ended and was spinning silently on the phonograph. When Hawkeye spoke, it was so quiet, B.J. barely caught it.

“That’s not funny, Beej. They can’t all be lies.”

B.J. swallowed. The scotch suddenly burned in the back of this throat. “Actually, they’re all true.”

Hawkeye didn’t say anything. He downed the rest of his drink. “I’m done. You?” Without waiting for an answer, he snatched B.J.’s glass and left the room.

B.J. was left alone on the Pierces’ overstuffed couch, staring at the condensation ring his glass had left on the coffee table. His toes started to go numb with an icy cold as he realized he had just found the line between them, and he had kicked it a little too hard. 

On the other side of the house, the kitchen sink turned on.

His hands were shaking, so he curled them into fists. He took a shuddering breath and got up. 

He followed the sound of dishes clattering to the kitchen. Hawkeye was bent over the sink, flannel rolled up past his elbows and black and silver hair obscuring his face. His hands worked at a dinner plate with a meticulous fury that B.J. had only ever seen in the scrub room between back-to-back-to-back O.R. shifts.

“There’s extra blankets in the closet by the bathroom,” Hawkeye said. 

B.J. watched him scrub in silence for a moment. His lungs were full of rocks. He tried to think of something to say. He didn’t want to take it back, but he would if it meant Hawkeye would look at him again. “Hawk—”

“What do you do?”

Whatever B.J. had been about to say died in his mouth. “What?”

Hawkeye jammed the plate into the drying rack and unsurfaced another one from the suds. “You said you quit surgery. So what do you do now?”

B.J. slowly exhaled and leaned against the counter. “Mechanic. I work afternoons and weekends in an auto shop downtown, stay home with Erin the other half. It’s different enough while still being similar to what I’m used to, you know?”

“Mm. Patching together spare machinery parts instead of people parts.” Another plate in the drying rack. 

B.J. smiled, if tightly. “Exactly. Maybe someday I’ll go into surgery again, start a private practice, I dunno. I just can’t stomach it yet.”

Hawkeye’s hand dug around in the sink and emerged with a fistful of forks and knives. “Did Peg leave you or did you leave her?”

“It was a mutual leaving, really.” B.J. thought he should pick up a towel and start drying, but he didn’t know which dishes went where in the Pierces’ faded kitchen cabinets. Instead, he folded his arms. “But I guess if you had to say, she left me first. The war changed a lot more of me than I thought it did. I mean, Peg changed, too. She has this friend she met—Dottie, whose husband was also drafted—and they helped each other. She doesn’t need me for everything anymore, and she . . .” He paused. He had a feeling Peg wouldn’t mind him telling Hawkeye about how she fell in love with another woman, how she had found a lifeline in California the same way B.J. found a lifeline in Korea, but it didn’t seem like his story to tell. “Anyway, I had to get used to that.”

Hawkeye’s dish rag slid over each utensil exactly ten times before moving on to the next. “You’re saying she learned how to clean her own gutters.”

Despite the tension weighing over the room, B.J. laughed. “Yeah, she’s plenty handy with the yardwork now. A lot handier than me with finances, too.”

“She suing you?” The utensils clattered into the drying rack. Next came the serving spoon.

“No, it’s amicable. She’s keeping the house, I moved into the beach house. We’re splitting custody of Erin, but I still watch her at the house while Peg’s working.” He stopped again, sucked his teeth when Hawkeye didn’t say anything more. The few feet of counter between them felt like thousands of miles. “It’s been rough, but we both agree it’s for the best. I think she could tell right away that my head wasn’t on right when I came back, but it took me a bit longer to figure it out.”

“The nightmares?” Hawkeye rinsed the spoon and picked up one of their scotch glasses.

“That and . . . other things.”

Hawkeye finally stopped moving, the rag balled up inside the glass. “You mean because you . . . because you . . .”

B.J. nodded. “Yeah. That’s one of them.”

Hawkeye kept staring into the sink. He looked tired in a way he only had on the very worst nights in Korea, after they’d stitched together whole platoons of boys without facial hair only to bus the majority of them back to the front. “So that one’s the lie.”

“I told you, they’re all true.”

“But they can’t be, that’s not the game.”

“Then I’m done playing.”

A long silence followed. B.J. watched Hawkeye’s back rise and fall as he breathed. His stomach felt like it had sunk through the floor.

“Look, I don’t expect anything from you, and I never meant to make you feel uncomfortable, I just—” B.J.’s eyes started to sting. He dug his nails into his palms and glared at a spot on the tile by his sock. “I need you to know that you mean so much to me. And, and I don’t want anything from you that you can’t give me, but I need you to be a part of my life, in whatever way you’ll let me, just as long as you don’t hate me.”

“What are you talking about?”

His head snapped up. Hawkeye was looking at him with a funny twist to his brows.

B.J. fought the urge to bolt outside and run through snowbanks until his feet froze off. “I’m trying to tell you that it’s okay that you don’t love me, I just—”

“That I don’t love you? Beej, I thought you knew. I thought all of fucking Korea knew. Margaret sure did, and she had no problem throwing it in my face whenever she thought I was being stupid, which was all the time. Of course, when she did, I always brought up Helen Whitfield—”

“Stop. Wait. Just, back up.” B.J. unclenched his hands and waved them in front of his face. “Are you saying—?” His tongue twisted in a knot. He untangled it and tried again. “Do you mean that you—?”

“Of course I do. Since day one.”

B.J. broke into a grin. If his stomach had been through the floor a minute ago, now it shot into his throat and was lifting him up as if full of helium. “Really?”

“Yes really.” Hawkeye’s own face caught up in a smile.

B.J. stepped closer. He gently took the glass out of Hawkeye’s hands and set it in the sink. “You do?” 

“Yes, I do,” Hawkeye said, looking like he was biting back a laugh.

B.J. wrapped his fingers around Hawkeye’s wrists and held them up to his chest. “You really love me?”

At this, Hawkeye did laugh. “That’s what I’m saying, you moron, I really love you.”

“Well, I love you, stupid!”

“Good!” 

“Good!”

They were giggling like schoolgirls, but B.J. didn’t think he’d ever felt more ecstasy in his life. He felt like he was floating halfway to the moon, but really he was standing in a tiny kitchen in Maine listening to Hawkeye tell him he loved him.

Between their laughter, Hawkeye batted his eyelashes obnoxiously. “Now that the wedding vows are complete, are you going to kiss the bride? Or do I have to—”

B.J. kissed him. It was awkward, B.J. surging ahead too fast, but Hawkeye kissed him back instantly. It was electric, lightning running through B.J.’s veins. He remembered the first time kissing Peg when he was seventeen, and this was like that but with twice the shock.

B.J.’s hands slid up Hawkeye’s arms to his shoulders, then down to his waist. He dug his fingers into his hips and pressed forward, pushing Hawkeye into the corner of counter between the sink and the stove. Hawkeye’s hands fisted into the front of B.J.’s shirt.

B.J. broke off and pressed kisses along Hawkeye’s jaw up to his ear, then worked his way down Hawkeye’s neck. One of his hands slid up to cup the back of Hawkeye’s head, tilting him to the side while he sucked at his pulse point. Hawkeye’s breath hit the side of his face in panting bursts.

“Beej.” 

B.J. felt the vibrations of Hawkeye’s moan across his tongue. He pressed his hips harder against Hawkeye’s.

“Wait, Beej, just. God, hold on a second.” Hawkeye untangled his fingers from where they had hooked into B.J.’s collar and pushed against his chest.

B.J. allowed himself to be backed up. “Am I doing something wrong?”

“On the contrary, you’re doing everything right.”

“Well, in that case—” B.J. returned to his spot on Hawkeye’s neck in a rush.

Hawkeye yelped. “If you keep doing everything right, you’ll take us to a very specific place.”

“I don’t see what the problem is.” B.J. sucked a soft spot of skin above Hawkeye’s collarbone between his teeth.

Hawkeye trembled, distracted. “We are _not_ having sex inside my Dad’s house!”

“What if we go outside your Dad’s house?”

“We’d freeze before we can unzip our pants!” Hawkeye groaned again as B.J. kissed a line back up to his face. “I guess we could go into the garage and climb into the back of the DeSoto—”

B.J. kissed him hard. “Yes. That.”

Hawkeye laughed into his mouth. B.J. never wanted to be any further from that laugh again. “You’re really eager for that idea, aren’t you? You got some kind of car fetish?”

“No,” B.J. lied, not about to admit that sometime in Korea, Hawkeye had invaded his fantasies about the night he lost his virginity in the backseat of Peg’s station wagon. “I’m a mechanic. Any interest I show in your car would purely be to check if it’s up on the latest safety standards.”

“Oh no, oh no no no no no. You’re blushing.” Hawkeye patted his cheek, smile absolutely smarmy. “I don’t think I’ve _ever_ seen you blush before. It’s definitely a fetish.”

“Is not.”

“Is too!”

“Is not!”

“Prove it.”

“I will!”

B.J. was just about to kiss him again when he heard someone clear their throat behind him. He jumped away from Hawkeye as if he were a hot iron and whipped around to see Daniel standing at the fridge. 

“Came down to get a little late night snack. You boys need anything?” Daniel held up some slices of cheese, a familiar glint of mischief in his eyes.

“Um, no, thanks.” All the blood that had been rushing southward now shot into B.J.’s face. The front of his shirt was stained with Hawkeye’s dishwater handprints.

“Well, help yourself if you get hungry, but I’m sure you’ll be alright for the night.” Daniel winked.

“ _Dad_ ,” Hawkeye groaned.

Daniel waved from halfway up the stairs. “Don’t worry about me, I’m already asleep.”

Hawkeye knocked his head against the cabinet behind him. “See what I mean? He’s so embarrassing.” He looked over at B.J., three feet away and heart hammering in his throat. “Hey, relax. You think you’re the first boy he’s caught me with in this kitchen?”

That snapped B.J. back to the present. “What?”

Hawkeye tenderly wrapped his fingers around B.J.’s wrist. “Come on, where were we? You were about to prove something to me, I think.”

“Was I?”

“Yeah, you were. Upon further consideration, I’ve found I don’t care what the old man hears.” He set off for the stairs, tugging B.J. along. 

He led B.J. into the bedroom at the end of the hall and barely got the door closed before B.J. shoved him against it, already fumbling with the buttons on Hawkeye’s flannel. Hawkeye’s hands were steadier but no less eager as they rapidly stripped each other and maneuvered further into the room until B.J.’s knees hit the side of the bed. While terrified of making too much noise with Daniel only across the hall, B.J. was more afraid Hawkeye would realize he had no idea what he was doing, but Hawkeye talked him through it in-between telling dirty jokes with his mouth pressed against B.J.’s ear. B.J. didn’t know he was allowed to laugh so much during sex.

After, they laid together with B.J.’s arm wrapped around Hawkeye’s waist and Hawkeye’s hand in B.J.’s hair. In the morning, B.J. would panic when he found himself alone in a bed he didn’t recognize, but the smell of coffee would draw him down to the kitchen, where Hawkeye would kiss him right in front of his dad and serve him a plate heaping with French toast and two sunny-side up eggs. Daniel would crack a few jokes eerily similar to the things his son had said the night before, and B.J. would try not to blush, to the delight of both the Pierces. When Hawkeye did the dishes after a lazy morning of sharing breakfast and more stories, B.J. would help him dry and make a game out of guessing where each dish belonged. 

That, and beyond, was the future. For right now, he rested his head on Hawkeye’s chest and listened to his heartbeat until he fell asleep.

**Author's Note:**

> Title is a reference to willow by taylor swift which _is _a welcome to korea song.__
> 
> __Thanks for reading! If you enjoyed, come check me out on[tumblr](https://jamestfortitsoutkirk.tumblr.com/), I need more people to talk to who will understand my unhinged mashposting._ _


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